Alsara: Requiem and Revolution

The Dark before the Dawn

Viscount Felix Adler

This man is your patron, of sorts. He was once the Viscount of Brakenvald, as appointed by Alexander d’Tunis when the two of them were still part of the Imperial Court in Hauptstadt. The city did not take kindly to his reign, however, and rebelled against him. What he did to provoke his population is not known; but it has been suggested that there was a famine, and his response was harsh. He was somewhat bewildered by their revolt, and has, many times, complained of the lack of discipline and willingness to weather hardship in his people. He seems to see the entire situation as a failure of character in the peasant class; this may have contributed heavily to his situation.

He and his family would have died in the rebellion, if not for the actions of the protagonists. As they fled from the Reformationist rebels, the protagonists tracked them, eventually witnessing their inevitable confrontation. A noble, his wife, and their young daughter are no match for five or six angry soldiers, and the conclusion seemed forgone; that is, until company arrived. The protagonists were unable to stand by and witness what was to come, so they killed the rebels, rescuing the Adler family. The Adlers then hired them to guard them on their way to Drakenheim, and this has been their relationship since then.

Things did briefly become more complicated when Felix confessed to King Alexander d’Tunis that his private guards were Vokayan spies (despite the protagonists’ insistence otherwise). The protagonists were arrested for questioning, leading to a prison escape, being harbored by the Order of the Peacekeepers, and eventually one unlucky interrogator scooping shit off city streets until the day he died.

Before he was the Viscount of Brakenvald, he was a promising knight in the armies of Empress Amelia. As they marched through the lowlands of the Rampart Mountains, within sight of the Rampart Line, his part of the camp was attacked by Vokayan skirmishers. In the battle he was crippled by a nearly lethal bowshot, ending his career as a soldier before the war had really even begun. He was transitioned to the logistical corp, where he did very well for himself. His incredible luck held all the way through the Neverwar, leaving him as one of the few people who had witnessed the Krov Doline, the Battle of the Black Cage, the Battle of Cascade Fortress, and the falls of Lowpeak, Obsidian, and High Tower. His was one of the few regiments that managed to retreat southward from Cascade Valley, circumventing Riverheart and managing to return to the Empire intact. His taste for war has been quite dampened since his injury, and he has been known to thank whatever Vokayan archer pegged him on the steps of the Rampart Line in his prayers; if he had been on horseback with a lance through all that war, there is a slim chance indeed he would have made it home to his wife and daughter again.